While the risk of universal Internet access is substantive, the consequence of not having access might be higher. While we need to support initiatives that push for greater access, we will have to put in place mechanisms that minimise the the adverse outcomes. I think we are well into rethinking our relation to Internet in the context of government and market surveillance, we seem to have left the policy questions regarding universal access to the market. There is a wide academic literature on the topic of 'digital divide' that has placed this articles concern at the centre of policy debate with little effect.It seem to me that the markets have greater stake in continuing digital disparities, than do the government, which seem to be primarily concerned about regulations and political controls.

Even if all of the five billion people who do not currently have access to internet did gain access due to Zuckerberg's not entirely disinterested largesse, a large number of them would still face what might be called linguistic barriers because most of the content on the internet is in what might be called metropolitan languages. There are hundreds of languages in Papua New Guinea and India, to mention two countries with vast linguistic diversity, that do not even have a script of their own.
The ruling elite in India ruthlessly and methodically disenfranchises the vast majority of Indians by keeping them confined to what Rorty would call the prison-house of Indian vernaculars.
The poor in India would remain disenfranchised and excluded from participating in what the English media in India calls national discourse even if they had access not just to the "free" internet but also to the "subscription-only" domains on the internet including access to the entire output of all research on Indian polity, Indian economy, Indian history, Indian sociology, Indian media and Indian culture. And the reason is that all research on every topic that has to do with India as a nation is conceived and carried out in English. Going beyond English might take one to other languages associated with economic power, but not to Indian vernaculars. There are more books on Indian history in the US Library of Congress that were originally written in any one of Russian, Japanese, or Korean, than those originally written in all Indian vernacular put together. Moreover, since Western categories are used to generate the information on the internet, translating it into Indian vernaculars without using meaningless neologisms is impossible.

This idea will be very useful for every one, already there many sites which contains the details and news in local languages for example Google is available is many languages that are present in India, so In my opinion language will not be a barrier but the real barrier will be the political pressures to keep people unaware of the of these things so that they can easily persuade people and convince them to vote without merit.
For change to happen there should be a starting point hope this can become that point.

New Comment

Pin comment to this paragraph

After posting your comment, you’ll have a ten-minute window to make any edits. Please note that we moderate comments to ensure the conversation remains topically relevant. We appreciate well-informed comments and welcome your criticism and insight. Please be civil and avoid name-calling and ad hominem remarks.

Log in/Register

Please log in or register to continue. Registration is free and requires only your email address.

Log in

Register

Emailrequired

PasswordrequiredRemember me?

Please enter your email address and click on the reset-password button. If your email exists in our system, we'll send you an email with a link to reset your password. Please note that the link will expire twenty-four hours after the email is sent. If you can't find this email, please check your spam folder.